


Ignorance

by The_Cool_Aunt



Series: DISPATCH BOX [15]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Innocent Sherlock, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Past Child Abuse, Victorian, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6721873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cool_Aunt/pseuds/The_Cool_Aunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My sweet,” I started hesitantly. “Do you understand… how the babies get out?”</p>
<p>The secret compartment of Dr Watson’s dispatch box reveals some awful facts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignorance

“She had a child not long ago…”  
  
I had gratefully washed my hands in the basin provided. I didn’t usually mind assisting with post-mortem examinations, particularly if they aided Sherlock Holmes in one of his investigations, but this one had been rather more awful than others. The girl—and despite my proclamation that she had given birth she really was just a girl—had been discovered in really the most horrific of places and conditions. She had been so filthy with fetid Thames muck that originally, it had been presumed that she was a negress, but a cursory examination had obviously revealed otherwise.  
  
The mud had also originally obscured the distinct marks of strangulation by a pair of large, strong hands on her delicate neck.  
  
That she had had a baby not more than a few weeks earlier at most made me feel rather ill.  
  
*  
  
“How could you tell?” my mad man demanded.  
  
“Tell what?” I asked in confusion. We had been summoned before five o’clock that morning—Sherlock rather eagerly poking at me until I awoke—and I was, sixteen hours later, ready to get my filthy clothing off, put on something clean and comfortable, and relax with a cup of tea in front of our fire.  
  
“That she had had a child so recently.”  
  
“Oh, goodness, Sherlock, you do not mean for me to go into all that right this moment, do you? I would really prefer to have something to eat and then to go to bed. It has been a long day.”  
  
He opened his mouth to protest, but I put up a warning finger. “No. You need to do the same. Go get out of _that_ —” I directed the warning finger at his suit, which was positively saturated in signs of his investigations in the vile stew that flows through our city in the guise of a river—“and into something clean. I shall persuade Mrs Hudson to put something together for us to eat.”  
  
I deliberately turned my back on him and rang the bell; I had a weakness for a certain rather pathetic expression of his and he knew it. I was not to be talked out of my plan. We both needed clean garments, nourishment, and rest far more than a science lesson.  
  
*  
  
The angels in heaven must weep in jealousy because we have Mrs Hudson’s lovely cakes on which to feast and they do not.  
  
The cold beef, bread, and cheese were excellent as well, but she had smiled indulgently at me when she entered with her heavy tray and I realised why when I raised the lid. She had graced us (well, Sherlock—he was the great lover of sweets) with two different cakes. One was a lovely lemon cake with ginger and the other some sort of almond cake with nutmeg. Both were heavenly and Sherlock would have made his supper from just those if I had not intervened and had him take something more substantial first.  
  
The petulant look I received in response to my proclamation made me laugh out loud. My darling can be so very ridiculous—particularly because he has the same expression when I take away his beakers and pipettes.  
  
Is it any wonder that I love him so very much?  
  
*  
  
Finally, I determined that we had had enough sustenance. I poured each of us a glass of brandy and made myself comfortable. I dropped a pillow in front of my chair. “Come over here,” I instructed, patting my knee. My mad man obediently dropped to the pillow and laid his head there, and my hand was instantly entangled in the glorious, dark hair. From this position we could both gaze into the fire, and I sighed in contentedness as the warmth began to penetrate my limbs.  
  
“I suppose you still wish to discuss—your earlier enquiry,” I broached.  
  
“Yes, please,” he affirmed.  
  
I sighed. “Do you remember our conversation about how—the physical act, I mean—babies are made?” He nodded and I stroked his cheek. “Well, obviously those seeds are very small, correct?”  
  
“You won’t ever let me look at it properly,” he grumbled.  
  
“How about, if you behave yourself, the next time the situation arises, I allow that?”  
  
He rolled his head back so he could see me. He was smiling in delight (and triumph, I realise now). “Yes, John,” he promised—in the same tone that I had promised my mother that I would finish all of my lessons before dashing out to join my mates for an afternoon of games.  
  
“Liar,” I commented affectionately.  
  
“Evidence, John,” he reminded me sulkily. “I might come across such a substance whilst examining the scene of a terrible crime and would need an accurate reference point…”  
  
“All right. Yes, you are terribly clever and you may have your sample… soon.”  
  
“How soon?” he demanded eagerly, and at that moment I honestly can say that I was not sure if he was more eager for the act that would produce such a sample or the examination of it after.  
  
“Do you want to hear about my examination of that poor girl’s body or not?”  
  
He immediately turned back to face the fire and took a good sip of his brandy. “I want to hear about your examination, please,” he replied contritely.  
  
“Very well. So we have established—to a certain point—that you understand about what happens between…” and I hesitated here, for despite our multiple conversations about and obvious disregard for social strictures, I was and still am bound by what I have learned to be decent and appropriate, and cannot but help to express myself by such rules.  
  
“Husband and wife,” he supplied dully. Whether or not he agreed with or understood them, he knew the rules as well as I did, as his rather glum pronouncement displayed.  
  
“Yes,” I continued gratefully. “Between husband and wife, and you do know what the husband experiences—his emissions.” I paused and took some of my own brandy. It was quite good.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Well, what do you suppose happens after that?”  
  
He looked up at me again, and seemed flummoxed.  
  
“Surely you have seen women—with child.”  
  
“Oh, that! I did not understand it at first, but it was explained to me.”  
  
I wondered. I could not help myself from wondering—nor from asking. “Sherlock, you do mean that you know that babies grow in ladies’—inside ladies—correct?”  
  
“Yes. There was a slashing down in—”  
  
“Never mind that. As long as you understand that yes, babies grow for nine months inside their mothers, and the mothers get very big around their middles.”  
  
“Yes,” he declared decisively, and we both took a drink. “But after the babies are in their cots (and I thought this particular viewpoint of infants suddenly being transported from their mothers’ wombs to the nursery, apparently already bathed, dressed, fed, and sleeping, so naïve as to be completely adorable), how do you—and other doctors—know? I have seen mothers. They do not look any different from ladies who are not—not mothers. Well, they usually look more tired and sometimes there’s crusty bits from babies’ hands… I mean that I have not noticed a perceptible difference in their bodies.”  
  
I did not particularly wish to go into further detail, but what he had asked actually was quite relevant to his investigations, and I was still a bit surprised that he did not already know at least some of it. And then it occurred to me—he had not ever actually _needed_ to know. He knew about the general existence and appearance of _all_ the organs without necessarily understanding the mechanics of how they functioned. Doctors such as myself would have performed the post-mortems or other examinations, and all he needed to know was that someone had just had a baby, the way he might need to know that someone suffered from an ailment of the liver—the details were, for him anyway, irrelevant.  
  
“John?” he prodded, bumping his head against my leg to prompt me.  
  
“What? Oh. Their shapes. Well, for one thing—you know that once a fine leather glove is stretched out, it is difficult to get it back to its original size and shape, correct?”  
  
“Of course,” he affirmed. “There was that stabbing. The husband said that the glove found was not his, but only a hand as large as his could have stretched it into the shape it was.”  
  
“So people are very much the same. If someone is very fat and then becomes thin, do they not have a great deal of excess skin?”  
  
“That explains a great deal about Mycroft’s appearance,” he responded. “His used to be stretched rather full.”  
  
I laughed in spite of myself before continuing: “All right, then. So if a lady is… if a lady is very large with a baby inside of her…”  
  
“Oh!” he exclaimed, sitting straight up. My leg felt cold.  
  
“Yes?” I encouraged.  
  
“She would have a great deal of excess skin around her… belly. I expect that it is usually hidden by their clothing.”  
  
“Very good. Exactly. That is one way to know.”  
  
“There are other ways, then?” he immediately demanded, reading my meaning.  
  
Did I really want to explain this to him? I considered it. So far he had been fortunate in that reliable doctors had determined the state of some of the victims he was endeavouring to vindicate, and that none of his investigations had necessitated him knowing more than what they told him. But what if, some day, a doctor missed something? Was misled? Was a drunk and a drug addict (as I heard a police surgeon in Whitechapel was—but I had also heard that he was brilliant in his own way and I did not ever want my darling to spend any time with him because it was rumoured that he, like my sweetheart, did not hesitate to do some fairly horrible experiments upon himself merely to make a point).  
  
My thoughts were wandering, and I received a rather pointed poke in the leg to bring me back.  
  
“What other ways?” he reiterated. He had put his glass (which was empty) on the hearth and spun around on his knees to face me. He was getting upset; I could see the tension in his lovely white forehead and around his eyes and mouth. I had to get through this as quickly as I could and then change the subject before he became distraught.  
  
“My sweet,” I started hesitantly. “Do you understand… how the babies get out?”  
  
“What?” Add horror-struck to his expression.  
  
“How the babies get from inside their mothers to their cots.” His mouth fell open. It had clearly never occurred to him. I continued hastily. “Well, my love, it should hardly be surprising to you that where the man… deposits his seed—well, that’s where the babies come out.”  
  
His eyes widened and he looked as if he was going to faint. I leaned forward and cupped his sharp chin in my hand. I kissed his forehead, gently, and waited for him to process this information.  
  
“But…” he stammered, and then his eyes shut. “But for a man’s organ, even rigid—I presume you and I are somewhat average—you have said that the more closely around the organ—and a baby is—without a doubt—larger in circumference…” His voice died out and he shuddered.  
  
And then, to my great alarm, I noted a tear slip down his cheek.  
  
“Oh, my sweetheart!” I exclaimed, mortified that I had disturbed him so. “Come up here.” I put down my glass and spread my arms wide, and he scrambled up and into my lap. “My precious lamb,” I whispered, kissing his delicate features. “Do not trouble yourself. You face the most horrific of facts—the cruelty that one person can inflict upon another. You do not need to know all the details of other facts of life.”  
  
He shuddered and burrowed into my shoulder. I began to stroke his bony back through his dressing gown. For all his height, he was so slight that he was no burden, although he was careful not to put too much of his weight on my bad leg. He trembled as I held him. Something had truly frightened him.  
  
“What has you so upset?” I asked quietly.  
  
“Having a whole baby in… and then… that must put a terrible strain on them,” he choked.  
  
“Yes, it can.” I hesitated to answer this way—I wanted to be honest, but I also did not wish to go any further in my description of the effects of a confinement, as it clearly was horrifying him.  
  
“What else does it do?”  
  
Damn. I knew that tone. Now that he had started his enquiry, he could not be persuaded away from it until he was satisfied that he had all of the relevant information. If I hedged now—withheld anything—and he discovered it later, he would be furious with me. I considered my answer carefully.  
  
“It can cause a great number of changes. Some are temporary and go away, and some can be quite dreadful, or last a long time, or make permanent changes to the mother.”  
  
“Permanent?” he burst out. I could feel his entire body grow tense.  
  
“Why do you wish to know all of this, so suddenly? We know that that poor girl did have a baby, and we know what happened to her and to the baby. Do you really need to know more?”  
  
He was silent. I continued stroking his back. “It is not just about that poor girl, is it?” I finally determined. I felt him move his head a bit. “Was it another case? Another victim?”  
  
He was quiet for so long that I wondered if he was not going to answer me at all, but then he took a deep breath and sighed and when he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “Not a case,” he explained. “It is about… my mother.”  
  
The silence was on my end of things then. I was stunned. Sherlock rarely spoke of his parents at all. He would allude to his childhood on occasion, but it was usually a straightforward statement of some dry fact—I recalled him mentioning how his father had taught him the “facts of life” by giving him some medical texts, which clearly had not done a thorough job—and he had never expressed any particular sentiment in association with either parent. He was more forthcoming in his descriptions of his relationship with his brother, but I cast my memory back and could not recall a single instance when he had alluded to any sort of emotions—on his end or theirs—related to his mother or his father.  
  
So now, a discussion about how babies came into the world had for some reason elicited what I could only describe as an attack of some sort, so strong were the feelings it stirred. I desperately wanted to see his face, but I sensed that it would be even more difficult for him to articulate his thoughts if he were being observed. Instead, I held him close, and we continued our conversation with his head nestled in the crook of my neck.  
  
“What about your mother?” I said encouragingly. “Did something happen to her?”  
  
“I suppose… yes. I did not realise it until just now—I did not connect the circumstances, but now I have.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“My father used to tell me that my mother was not well,” he began. “That she could no longer be a proper wife. And that it was I who had caused it.”  
  
“What? That is horrible, Sherlock! Whatever did he mean?”  
  
When he continued, his voice was so low that if I did not have my ear inches from his mouth, I probably would not have been able to discern his words. “Father said that it was my fault—that my being born had made her ill—and that because of me she could not become a mother again. I did not understand how I could have caused her to be so ill when I was just a tiny baby, but now that you have described what effect becoming a mother can have, Father must have been correct.”  
  
I had no idea how to respond to this because I strongly suspected that his surmise about his mother’s health was accurate. It was certainly not uncommon for a particular confinement or delivery to take a toll—it was actually quite a dangerous thing, to be honest, and often fatal, but it certainly was never the fault of the infant. How awful was it that his father had not only blamed his young son but had actually expressed his twisted belief to the impressionable youth? How did I explain that to him?  
  
He solved my problem by suddenly pushing himself up and off my lap (I felt so cold then) and sliding back onto the cushion on the floor. I believed that I understood—the emotions he had been experiencing had overwhelmed him and he needed to withdraw—from them; from me.  
  
“I want a cigarette,” he informed me petulantly, and I, grateful that our awful conversation had apparently ended for the moment, rose and retrieved his smoking materials. He glanced up at me as I handed them to him. Instead of perturbed, to my great relief he now looked rather tired.  
  
“Would you like some more brandy?” I inquired, stooping to retrieve his glass.  
  
*  
  
“Would you like a cigarette?” he asked politely. My darling was being so very sweet and responding well to my attempts at calming him. I had added more cushions and he was now on his back in the cradle I had created, somehow smoking without getting ashes in his eyes. I had poked up the fire and charged our glasses and seated myself next to him, leaning against his chair and letting the warmth of the fire soak into my muscles.  
  
“No thank you. Tell me more about Mycroft,” I suggested. “Was he very large at some point?” I breathed a sigh of relief as my attempt to change the subject, which was so heavy and distressing, to something lighter, had its intended effect.  
  
“He was,” he began. “He had a fondness for pastries and when he was… let’s see… about twelve years old, I suppose, he became quite round.” His deep voice rumbled and flowed over me and filled the room, sliding into the corners and joining the shadows, and my own joined his in laughter as he described some of his brother’s attempts to disguise his apparently quite rotund figure.  
  
Now the fire was burning down and my eyelids felt heavy and grainy.  
  
“I think that it is time to retire,” I told him. “Come to bed.” I plucked his cigarette from his fingers and tossed it into the fire, then stood and reached out my hand to him; pulled him up. I gently turned him and, with my hands on his shoulders, guided him into his bedroom.  
  
*  
  
I was surprised and pleased that he slept well. I myself did not. What he had told me about his parents came back to my mind with an almost sickening effect. I sat up and looked down at his tranquil face. How could any father tell his son such a horrible thing? And my poor Sherlock, not understanding but feeling somehow culpable regardless.  
  
If he wished to discuss babies or anything related the next day, I would face it head on, but for now, all I wanted was several hours of sleep for both of us and the next morning I would feed him breakfast and if he brought up his father and mother again I would kiss and embrace and hold and soothe him until he did not have to think about that ever again.  
  
I did finally drift off, and we both slept well into the morning.  
  
[As there so often is, here appears a final thought written in the detective’s distinct hand: _I might wish at some time to share with you more about my parents. There are many aspects of my boyhood that I have not revealed. Oh! You said that I might have a sample to examine. Perhaps we can manage that very soon?_  
  
_I do truly love you, John._ ]  
  



End file.
